Gone
by Lady Aeryn
Summary: A decision of Harry's leaves Ron stuck alone to deal with painful realizations. Mild H/H.


Gone 

**Author:** Lady Aeryn

**Author Email:** Aeryn@schnoogle.com

**Category: **Angst/Drama/Romance

**Keywords:** Ron, Harry, Hermione, H/H

**Spoilers:** GoF

**Rating:** PG

**Summary:** Things happen. And it seldom matters whether you hoped for them or not. Ron's POV on the sudden departure of a good friend.

**Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

**Author's Note:** Enjoy, my fellow Pumpkin Pie crewers! g 

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He's gone. 

Not a damn word, either. But I'm not sure whether that's what's bothering me more—that, the fact that he feels like he needs to do the bloody selfless hero thing _again_, or the fact that Hermione and I are going crazy as a result of it. 

Or something else. But I won't get ahead of myself. 

Hermione's gone more nutters than me. She always gets more emotional about these things. I haven't seen her this bad since the third task of the Triwizard Tournament and Harry disappeared without a trace with Cedric... 

But that was different. He did _this_ of his own choice. We couldn't have stopped him that time... 

Which is where I find myself stuck between two feelings. I want to be pissed as hell at Harry because he didn't think enough to let Hermione and I decide whether if we wanted to help him or not, or I want to be sick at knowing that this is worse than three years ago, because we _know _why Harry's gone this time, but we still can't do a damn thing to help him. 

He's gone. 

Though the truth is we're really not that different, I want to say I've got the worst of it now, because I feel bloody terrible and can't afford to cry, when she can: Hermione doesn't need any more crap laid on top of what she's already feeling. 

It's not that I expected her to take this completely cool-like. She's always been the most open of the three of us about her feelings. But once we realized what Harry had done—it was like something ripped away seven years' worth of strength she'd built up after years of surviving crap with Harry and I. And there was just this pale, shaking, soundless white sheet beneath the one she was already covered with, that sort of looked like Hermione... 

Well, that's not entirely accurate. She didn't shake at first—and she doesn't shake constantly. But she hasn't seemed to be able to completely stop. I know she's trying. She succeeds quite a bit of the time... but then she'll get this look on her face, like she's ashamed she's even trying that, and it'll just start right back up again. 

She's the most open of us... but she's also the brains of it all. We rely on her head to get us through things. We're fractured now—Harry's gone, Hermione's a mess and I'm... here. 

And perfectly bloody sodding useless. 

The problem with her being both the emotional and the brains... you take her away, and what's the use of what's left? She's going to be wracking herself for some hint, some small thing she could have done or read that could have stopped him from going, or at the very least, given him some sort of advantage wherever he was. And she probably will find something—and she'll wrack herself even more because she hadn't wracked in time to be any good to Harry. 

And I just _don't know what to do._

We've always followed Harry, but what do you do when the hero runs out cold on you, no way to find him, and therefore _he's[_ the reason you're crapping yourself... 

When we found out—he'd already been gone for hours. Hermione was so ill with guilt about not having stopped him, because she'd been up in the medical wing and I'd been up there with her... she cursed herself for getting anywhere near Wormtail's blasted hex and landing herself a week's stay in the infirmary, and I cursed myself for not realizing what Harry was doing when he got up and left her bedside last night. 

Because he wouldn't have done it without a damned good reason. Dumbledore knew this would happen, we weren't even supposed to have let him out of our sight at all... _I_ wasn't. 

_"But when would it ever be good enough for us, Ron?"_ Hermione asked me, in one of her brief lucid spells, before Madam Pomfrey gave her another dose of Sleeping Potion. _"Do you think any reason he'd give would have been enough for us to let him do that?" _

I'd tried to stay with her in her room for a while, but she wouldn't have any of it. I'm stubborn as well so of course I didn't do it right away. _Her doing this alone is no better than what Harry decided he'd do,_ I'd thought. 

And yet it's who she is. She's become more and more like Harry and I and us like her, but there are times I... no. Forget it. 

But I didn't want to fight her. The next second I was ready to blurt something, that we bloody shouldn't be just giving up like this, and I'd turned back to face her, but she wasn't facing me... and she reached over to the tiny rickety table by her bedside, to the moving photo of the three of us celebrating in Hogsmeade after we'd passed our O.W.L.s two years ago. The one she'd asked me and Harry to bring up to the hospital wing for her. I was close enough to see her touch Harry's face, her fingers trembling like she was afraid he'd disappear the moment she touched him. 

"Just leave me for a little while, Ron," she'd murmured to me in a deathly quiet sort of voice, that I wouldn't've even heard if I hadn't been trying to. 

I left. But just before I turned away again I got another glimpse of the photo in her hand, and yet another nail figuratively lodged itself in my foot. 

The Harry in the photo wasn't moving like everything else in it—Hermione and I were facing each other, our heads shaking and mouths working furiously in another one of our arguments which we'd managed to halt just long enough to take a decent photo. Harry just stood there... staring back at the real Hermione with the most intense sort of expression on his face. As intense as you'll see Harry get, anyway—his eyes hold all the emotion, and the rest of his face is just there, pale and taut. And there was something else there, something I'd never seen the _real_ ones hold, and maybe that's what I'm comforting myself with now. 

That it wasn't the real Harry looking like that. Just a photo copy. 

It's bloody selfish for my personal wishes to even get any quarter in my mind at a time like this. 

That I should be mad that the one she wants right now is Harry, and she wants nothing to do with me. That Harry's the only one who'll make her feel all right in the end. 

He always is. 

Even when he's the one who hurts her. 

But now, he's hurt her and the one way he can heal her isn't likely at this point. Unless You-Know-Who happens to look in a mirror and die from a heart attack at his own ugliness, Harry probably isn't going to be back. 

And again I'm still thinking about how he's the one Hermione wants most. 

_You happy now, Ron? He's not in your way anymore. And you know what? She wants you less than ever._

Lately Harry had been trying to tell us that he just knew that when it came down to his final facing of Voldemort, it would be him and him alone, that we wouldn't be there. 

But of course Hermione and I wouldn't listen. We knew it was typical of Harry to shut us out when he thought it would be best for us not to know his most inner feelings—we just thought that this was typical Harry. 

At least I did, or did a damn good job of pretending. But Hermione was having none of it. Perhaps that was why Harry picked the time he did. When there was no way in the world Hermione would be able to stop him. 

But because he was afraid of the nagging, or because she just might have been able to stop him from going... 

And he knew I wouldn't say a damn word. 

I hate myself for that. If I'd been such a damn understanding friend, I'd have said something, and if he'd ignored that, I'd probably have conked him out. 

...And then later feel guilty because I knew that Harry was right all along and no matter what Hermione likes, she's not always going to be there to look out for him. 

This sort of emotional dilemma's why I usually leave the nagging up to Hermione. She has no qualms about it. 

Wormtail (well, You-Know-Who, anyway) knew what he was doing. This was no failed attempt to get Harry—this was killing two birds with one stone. He was going for one of us. By attacking Hermione and putting her out of commission You-Know-Who wasn't only effectively neutralizing the best chance Harry had in discovering an edge, but striking close enough to him so Harry knew that he could get him wherever he was now. 

And he's struck closer to his heart than even I'm having trouble accepting dealing with. 

Maybe Harry's stronger than I'm giving him credit for. I mean, You-Know-Who's attacked him, what, six times in the past? And certainly not getting any nicer each time. And Harry's always managed to work his way out... no. It wasn't work. It was some damned fortunate combination of luck and... whatever it is Harry's always managed to swing enough of in time to save his arse every time. 

I should have expected this—I mean, how many dress rehearsals for this have we had? First year, when Hermione came back and woke me up after the chess game from Hell... at that very moment Harry had been fighting You-Know-Who, we know now, and for the longest time she just stood there, rocking back and forth on her feet and running her fingers through her hair and rambling again and again to me over Snape and the Potions task and You-Know-Who and how she should have found some way to go through the fire after him because Harry'd probably need her—good shaking to get her out of that snap it took, I tell you. And then second year, and how many times in fourth year... how many times has one of us watched Harry charge alone into something that should have killed him? And charge back out again? 

How many times did we worry and still want to go charging in there with him even though we knew the last dozen times he'd come out okay? How many more times _would _he? 

And though I don't much like admitting it, she's charged through with him further than I ever have. Something always happens so she's either there with him to the point just before all hell breaks loose... or she's not there at all. I've usually been taken out somewhere before then. Because they've always been the stronger ones. 

And yet I still tell myself I never saw it coming that she'd fall in love with him. 

No, I'm lying again—That wasn't so hard to see. But Harry was so blind to her devotion at times I actually nurtured the hope he'd just continue merrily down that oblivious path he did so often and she'd finally give up. It almost drove Ginny mad before _she_ finally gave up—and here I still am, standing holding what's left of the strings. 

I was banking on coming out the one on top simply because the forerunner was unknowingly forfeiting a match he'd never known he was in. And Hermione was never one to settle for second best if she knew she could get first. Which she usually did. 

If Harry hadn't left, I probably would have shaken him mad anyway not long afterwards for being so willingly blind for so long. It's so maddening seeing someone so close to having something you want—you can't understand how they don't already have it, yet at the same time you want nothing more than for them to never understand it, so _you_ can have a go... 

Sigh. 

She's asleep now, so she can't tell me to leave this time. I've made the mistake of leaving her twice—once almost cost me her. The other's probably cost me Harry. I'm not going to do it again. 

And here, it's easier to ignore, while there's still just enough left of the insular world the three of us wound up building around us, the things that we're going to have to deal with soon enough—like writing to Mum about this before she finds out about it whenever it gets printed in the _Prophet_, yet not wanting to jump and make her fret unnecessarily. She already does so for him almost more than me or Ginny, or my brothers. Yet another place I found myself envying Harry—and then usually kicking myself afterwards or more usually, having Hermione do it for me, because at least I actually _have_ a mum to be jealous over. 

I'd never have had her as a friend if it weren't for Harry. And yet if it weren't for her, I'd have lost him as a friend several times over. 

And we're about to lose him again, anyway. After all that's happened, after all we've done, we don't matter. Not where we need to. _Damn_ it! 

Whether she wants me or not—I'm all she has now. 

She's looking a little better now, actually—now that she doesn't have the problems in the waking world glaring her in the eye from every angle. She's still a little pale, and I push a sweaty tendril of hair away from her temple... even as I do it feeling like I'm doing something that should be done by someone else. Like it's not my place and never was. 

But he's not here. 

I can be here for her in my way—no matter how I'd love to be doing this from where Harry should be. But then... maybe that's why. The grass is always greener... 

I reach down and clasp Hermione's hand, tracing tiny circles on it with my thumb. Being here—it's all I can do. 

Not to mention how much it would hurt Harry if he ever were to know that one of us was going through this alone. That was his place, he'd told us, no matter how we always tried to assure him it wasn't. 

She's stirring now—a tiny moan. Not painful, not a whimper—just there. And then... those fingers close around mine, as if it were her lifeline. 

There's only one way it could be. And I wonder, wherever Harry is, if he feels it. 


End file.
